Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough

Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community. The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions. "Our finding is very significant," said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California. "To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement. The study's results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

D. V. Shirkov: 60 years of Broken Symmetries in Quantum Physics (From the Bogoliubov Theory of Superfluidity to the Standard Model)

A retrospective historical overview of the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in quantum theory, the issue that has been implemented in particle physics in the form of the Higgs mechanism. The main items are:

1)	The Bogoliubov's microscopical theory of superfluidity (1946)
2)	The BCS-Bogoliubov theory of superconductivity (1957)
3)	Superconductivity as a superfluidity of Cooper pairs (Bogoliubov - 1958)
4)	Transfer of the SSB into the QFT models (early 60s)
5)	The Higgs model triumph in the electro-weak theory (early 80s)

The role of the Higgs mechanism and its status in the current Standard Model is also touched upon.

.pdf arXiv preprint

Einstein's unpublished opening lecture for his course on relativity theory in Argentina, 1925

In 1922 the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Council approved a motion to send an invitation to Albert Einstein to visit Argentina and give a course of lectures on his theory of relativity. The motion was proposed by Jorge Duclout (1856-1927), who had been educated at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich (ETH). This proposal was the culmination of a series of initiatives of various Argentine intellectuals interested in the theory of relativity. In a very short time Dr. Mauricio Nirenstein (1877-1935), then the university's administrative secretary, fulfilled all the requirements for the university's invitation to be endorsed and delivered to the sage in Berlin. The visit took place three years later, in March-April 1925. The Argentine press received Einstein with great interest and respect; his early exchanges covered a wide range of topics, including international politics and Jewish matters. Naturally, the journalists were more eager to hear from the eminent pacifist than from the incomprehensible physicist. However, after his initial openness with the press, the situation changed and Einstein restricted his public discourse to topics on theoretical physics, avoiding some controversial political, religious, or philosophical matters that he had freely touched upon in earlier interviews.. [abridged].

Can one see entanglement ?

The human eye can detect optical signals containing only a few photons. We investigate the possibility to demonstrate entanglement with such biological detectors.

While one person could not detect entanglement by simply observing photons, we discuss the possibility for several observers to demonstrate entanglement in a Bell-type experiment, in which standard detectors are replaced by human eyes. Using a toy model for biological detectors that captures their main characteristic, namely a detection threshold, we show that Bell inequalities can be violated, thus demonstrating entanglement. Remarkably, when the response function of the detector is close to a step function, quantum non-locality can be demonstrated without any further assumptions. For smoother response functions, as for the human eye, post-selection is required.

Visual Trace Route Tool

The visual trace route tool displays the path Internet packets traverse to reach a specified destination. A proxy trace (the default) maps the route across the network from your computer, to yougetsignal.com, to the URL you specify. A host trace is typically quicker - it simply maps the network route from yougetsignal.com (hosted at a central location by DreamHost) to the URL you specify. The tool works by identifying the IP addresses of each hop along the way to the destination network address. The estimated geophysical location of each hop is identified using MaxMind's GeoIP database. After all of the hops locations' are identified, the path to the destination is plotted on a Google Map.

Who Protects The Internet ?

For the past five years, John Rennie has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by U.K.-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie--a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman--patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables. The cables, thick as fire hoses and packed with fiber optics, run everywhere along the seafloor, ferrying phone and Web traffic from continent to continent at the speed of light.

Search for Life in the Solar System

“It is critical to know what to look for in the search for life in the solar system. The search so far has focused on Earth-like life because that’s all we know, but life that may have originated elsewhere could be unrecognizable compared with life here. Advances throughout the last decade in biology and biochemistry show that the basic requirements for life might not be as concrete as we thought.” John Baross - Professor of Oceanography and the Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington and lead author U.S. National Research Council report: “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems”

The human brain is on the edge of chaos

Cambridge-based researchers provide new evidence that the human brain lives "on the edge of chaos", at a critical transition point between randomness and order. The study, published March 20 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, provides experimental data on an idea previously fraught with theoretical speculation.

Self-organized criticality (where systems spontaneously organize themselves to operate at a critical point between order and randomness), can emerge from complex interactions in many different physical systems, including avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, and heartbeat rhythms.

According to this study, conducted by a team from the University of Cambridge, the Medical Research Council Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, and the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Unit Cambridge, the dynamics of human brain networks have something important in common with some superficially very different systems in nature. Computational networks showing these characteristics have also been shown to have optimal memory (data storage) and information-processing capacity. In particular, critical systems are able to respond very rapidly and extensively to minor changes in their inputs.

Robot to do its little turn on the catwalk

“Next up, the always lovely HRP-4C modeling the very best in this year’s faux industrial designs for the discerning robot. Soft curves accentuate the feminine side, while polished chrome reminds us that this line is as functional as it is sexy!” The HRP-4C, seen here in the nude, is a walking robot designed to model clothing on fashion runways. With 30 motors in her body, and 8 motors in her face to produce a limited set of expressions, she looks a lot better than that robot schoolmarm. HRP-4C looks pretty good while standing still, but it looks like it has a long way to go before it masters that sashay that is the trademark of runway models everywhere.

La Real Academia Española retira "tonto" como sinónimo de gallego

En 2013, cuando vea la luz la vigésimo tercera edición del diccionario de la Real Academia Española (RAE), "tonto" ya no será sinónimo de "gallego". Dentro de un par de meses, según José Manuel Blecua, secretario de la Academia, en la página de Internet http://www.rae.es/ ya se indicará que el artículo está enmendado. La RAE sigue sosteniendo que en el habla coloquial de Costa Rica se utiliza "gallego" con el significado de "tonto", pero ha decidido retirarlo porque no se han hallado "documentos escritos" en los que aparezca plasmado este uso.

Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon

Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather centre's resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere. Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year. Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta­ Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort managed to send their heavy duty £43 latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.

Old age begins at 27: Scientists reveal new research into ageing

Getting old already? 27-year-old singer Beyonce Knowles is already past her mental peak according to new research.

Old age is often blamed for causing us to misplace car keys, forget a word or lose our train of thought. But new research shows that many well-known effects of ageing may start decades before our twilight years. According to scientists, our mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27 after reaching a peak at 22. The researchers studied 2,000 men and women aged 18 to 60 over seven years. The people involved – who were mostly in good health and well-educated – had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Web's inventor (Tim Berners-Lee) gets a knighthood

The inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, has been awarded a knighthood for his pioneering work. Dubbed the "Father of the Web", he came up with a system over 10 years ago to organise, link and browse net pages. The famously modest man said he was "quite an ordinary person", and although it felt strange, he was "honoured". Sir Tim was recently reunited with the machine he used to invent the web when he e-mailed 80 schools from the UN's summit on the information society.

It was 20 years ago today: The Web (March 13, 2009)

Is it already 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee authored "Information Management: A proposal" and set the technology world on fire? Back in 1989, Berners-Lee was a software consultant working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research outside of Geneva, Switzerland. On March 13 of that year, he submitted a plan to management on how to better monitor the flow of research at the labs. People were coming and going at such a clip that an increasingly frustrated Berners-Lee complained that CERN was losing track of valuable project information because of the rapid turnover of personnel. It did not help matters that the place was chockablock with incompatible computers people brought with them to the office.

A Mesoscopic Mystery

Researchers continue to push rival interpretations of a vexing problem in mesoscopic physics, the size scale where quantum and classical worlds co-exist. The conductance across a narrow bridge between two reservoirs of electrons--a so-called quantum point contact--was expected to follow simple quantum rules, but doesn't. A group publishing in the 9 December print issue of PRL proposes a model of automatic electron spin alignment to explain the conductance anomaly. But in the 4 November print issue, another group's theory supports the claim that physics concepts borrowed from the world of material impurities is key. Both teams hope they're approaching a resolution to a problem that has turned mesoscopic physics on its head.

MUBs and the 0.7 Anomaly in QPC conductance

Thank Nanoscale for bringing to my attention a long standing puzzle in mesocopic scale condensed matter physics, the “0.7 anomaly”. The problem is the behavior of the conductance (inverse of resistance) for a quantum point contact (QPC). Two experimental papers showing the effect are cond-mat/0706.0792 and cond-mat/0005082, which see. Shot noise decreases at the 0.7 anomaly just as it does at the integer conductance points, see cond-mat/0311435. A recent perturbation analysis of the situation is given by cond-mat/0707.1989. This blog post gives a non perturbational calculation.

Air QERV Technology Explained (Casimir effect)

Wikipedia: In physics, the Casimir effect and the Casimir-Polder force are physical forces arising from a quantized field. The typical example is of two uncharged metallic plates in a vacuum, placed a few micrometers apart, without any external electromagnetic field.

Relativistic Hydrogen molecules extract energy from Vacuum Flucuations (pre-paper)

The claims of sub zero states of hydrogen have been controversial for years and caused the study of this field to languish for what may prove to be nothing more than semantics. A 2005 paper by Jan Naudts paper (5 August 2005). "On the hydrino state of the relativistic hydrogen atom" [5] contends that the sub zero state argument overlooks relativistic effect inside Casimir cavities. Relativistic hydrogen implies a temporal axis solution where the hydrino orbital remains stationary relative to a moving boundary as the atom rotates away from our plane reshaping the 4D boundary. The Casimir cavity enlarges the temporal axis so the atom and its boundaries relax “upward” on the temporal axis while reducing its profile in our plane. The orbital gets no closer to the nucleus from a 4D perspective where the nucleus is further displaced from the orbital on the temporal axis.

Pay it forward: UH prof helps advance science in developing countries

A University of Houston professor takes the phrase "pay it forward" to heart in his quest to advance science in Third-World countries. Once a budding physicist seeking opportunities 30 years ago in his native Panama, Carlos Ordóñez, an associate professor of physics at UH, recruits up-and-coming scientists from Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Brazil and other countries, matching them with UH's top researchers in biology, chemistry and physics for post-doctoral fellowships. During these two-year fellowships, the Latin American students gain valuable experience working with prominent faculty and using state-of-the-art facilities often not available in their home countries.

"USB Finger Drive": When reality meets product concepts

The story behind this is that Jerry had a motorcycle accident last May and lost a finger. When the doctor working on the artificial finger heard he is a hacker, the immediate suggestion was to embed a USB "finger drive" to the design. Now he carries a Billix Linux distribution and the Freddy Got Fingered movie as part of his hand.